Growing evidence suggests that timescales for plastic degradation have been vastly underestimated. The fossil record of plastic-like biopolymers might provide a perspective on plastic fossilization in deep time.

This Perspective discusses how well-established theoretical models of evolution can be adapted to study and generate testable predictions about the evolutionary dynamics of host–microbiota associations.

A horizon scan of international respondents identifies and discusses ten developing challenges in Antarctic conservation, revealing an increased emphasis on challenges related to governance, geopolitics and economics compared to a similar scan from 2012.

The interplay between speciation and extinction rates shapes clade diversity dynamics. Using a novel phylogenetic model that includes living and fossil lineages, the authors estimate speciation and extinction rates for each lineage and show that diversity dynamics are governed by a lineage tendency of macroevolutionary fitness decline, rather than clade-level processes.

The authors report a new species of theropod dinosaur from the Triassic Period of Argentina. Despite being one of the earliest theropods, Anteavis crurilongus has derived features more in line with Neotheropoda.

Over 20 species of geographically and phylogenetically diverse bird species produce convergent whining vocalizations towards their respective brood parasites. Model presentation and playback experiments across multiple continents suggest that these learned calls provoke an innate response even among allopatric species.

Combining fossil-based and molecular calibrations with data on horizontal gene transfer events, the authors develop a time-calibrated phylogeny of Fungi. This timescale, which integrates analytic uncertainties, suggests an older age of crown Fungi (1,401–896 million years ago), as well as a minimum age for ancient interactions involving fungi and the algal ancestors of embryophytes in terrestrial ecosystems (1,253–797 Ma).

Mitochondrial DNA from horses at the Middle Pleistocene archaeological site of Schöningen reveals insight into the evolutionary history of horses and advances techniques for the analysis of ancient DNA retrieved from highly degraded samples.

Human ignitions and lightning strikes both influence global fire regimes. Here the authors disaggregate the two effects in an analysis of global daily fuel moisture and flammability threshold datasets, and show that anthropogenic influences have lengthened fire seasons globally, regardless of other factors.

Understanding how terrestrial plants and ecosystems cope with shifts of water availability in space and time requires multiple approaches and collaborative efforts.